by Kate Bradley
‘Where is Destiny now?’
‘She’s being supervised by Mary.’ He held up a hand. ‘No – don’t say it. If we can’t trust the assistant head to keep one pupil under lock and key, then this school is sunk. Now, go and have your lunch knowing she is in safe hands.’
I crossed my arms and stayed put. ‘I cannot believe that social services have been here and are writing her off. I’ve never seen a sign that she’s a . . . what did you call Destiny?’
‘Not me,’ he said carefully, ‘social services. Their word was “fantasist”.’
‘And you believe that?’
‘You’ve already asked me that. Despite you being her form tutor and already knowing about Destiny’s history.’ George sighed and ran his hand through his greying hair. ‘All right, you’ve beaten me down. I’ll give you one minute, so come in but don’t sit down.’ He shut the door and sat behind his desk. ‘Look, it’s not up to me. I’ve told you, it’s their view. And, Jenni? They know her better, love.’ With the endearment and the gentling of his voice, I heard the hint of his almost gone Yorkshire accent. ‘Destiny’s been in and out of care since she was six. It’s understandable she’s got problems. And that’s how these problems come out – she makes things up for attention.’
‘But I saw them! This is what I keep telling you! She hasn’t said anything to me. In fact, she was going to get in the van. It’s not her fantasy, and I know damn well it isn’t mine. Don’t they care about the fucking gun?’
‘That’s in the hands of the police. Stop shouting, Jenni, you’re starting to sound like you’ve lost the plot, love.’
‘No. What did the social worker think about the gun?’
George did not look happy. ‘He asked about you. I told him you’d been in the army.’
I felt like I had been dunked in freezing water. For a moment I couldn’t breathe. ‘Is that what you think? That because of that I see guns everywhere?’
‘It doesn’t matter what the social worker thinks. The police are looking into the men, since that bit is their job, and the social worker’s job is looking after Destiny. Everyone is doing exactly what they should be – except you, it seems.’
I ignored him. ‘But it does matter what her social worker thinks. It matters a whole lot because it’s him who makes the judgement about whether Destiny is at risk. And it’s the presence of a gun that puts her at risk.’
‘Destiny was at risk yesterday, the day before that and the day before that. She’s had a caseworker since the day she was born.’ He sounded tired.
‘That doesn’t mean she’s not at risk now.’
George took his glasses off and rubbed his face. ‘He came and saw her within the hour.’
‘I think you’re being blasé about the danger of an armed man.’
George gave a dry, humourless laugh, ‘Oh Jenni. I don’t think anyone accused me of that before. Are the police not good enough for you, love?’
‘How well does the social worker actually know her?’
‘He wasn’t her case worker, but the one dealing with emergencies today.’
‘So he doesn’t know her at all.’
‘He’d read her file and he certainly seemed very knowledgeable about her case. He even offered to take her home there and then. She’s only still here because her attendance is low and I thought it was better that she didn’t miss any more lessons. He’ll also update her file and has promised that he’ll keep a closer eye on her. Tell me, what else can social services do?’
I stared out of the window, barely seeing the oblique view of the schools fields, the distant trees and gathering storm clouds. It all felt so lame, so not enough, given the situation.
‘Look, teaching is hard. I should know, I’ve been doing it for thirty years. You’ve come in at a very difficult time, resources have never been so stretched. When we took you on, you might not realise, but I had to cut the drama department by fifty per cent to keep the core subjects with enough teachers.’ He must’ve seen my wince: ‘Sorry. I didn’t want you to know, but if you’re angry with how things are, good. Be angry. We should all be bloody angry with how things are.
‘You’re in the middle of what an esteemed colleague of mine calls a “headteacher spring” – there’s an uprising of headteachers and they’re angry and political. You know this. You know that we can no longer use the netball courts because they’re no longer safe to do so. We have thirty-five geography textbooks for ninety-eight students doing GCSE geography. The school is falling apart. I have one headteacher friend who can’t sleep at night because of the stress and has developed IBS. Another has quit. Another hasn’t had a day off in six months because they spend their weekends coordinating the campaign against government cuts.’ He opened a drawer and plonked a bottle on his desk. ‘This is how teaching has changed. When I was a kid it would have been a malt to drink with the parents. Not now.’ He tapped the lid of the Gaviscon bottle. ‘I don’t even dare admit to my doctor how much of this stuff I get through. And I can tell you, since I had to cut the SEN worker to part time and take on some of her work, my job has now about topped out as manageable and I’m up an extra bottle a week.
‘So, as much as I share your concern – and I do – I’m just relieved a social worker turned up to see her so quickly. With the way the cuts have been for children’s services as well, I can count on two hands the arguments I’ve had with overstretched social workers telling them that I’m going to stay with at-risk kids until they come in and take them. With Destiny, he was here within an hour, spent time with her and was even keen to take her home, plus she lives in a secure unit. I don’t know why that’s not enough for you. It makes me feel like you’re looking for a fight.’
Shame and anger burned my cheeks. ‘It’s not enough.’
‘Destiny has to make better choices about the people she chooses to spend time with.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘They are her cousins, apparently.’
‘Her cousins?’ I couldn’t keep the incredulity out of my voice.
‘That’s what Destiny told her social worker. The social worker says Destiny encourages them. The staff at her home have had problems keeping them away, but she continues to hang out with them. A month ago, she was found climbing out of the bathroom window to see them, so now they keep it locked.’
‘No, she wouldn’t go with them out of choice. She wet herself, George. I saw her shaking. She’s got a black eye. Why does a young girl go off with men when she’s covered in her own urine and clearly frightened?’
‘Look, Jenni, this is the end of this discussion.’
‘Because she’s more scared not to, that’s why!’ I banged his desk. ‘Because she doesn’t have a choice.’
George didn’t react. ‘All the right things have been done. You’re not the only person who cares, Jenni. We all care. But we have a lot of kids that need our attention. Milly Davis is self-harming again. Jack White is having hassles in the community because of his dad; Janie Matthews’ mum died yesterday, out of the blue. CAMHS is concerned that Lacey Jones is being abused at home. I’ve got a boy starting from the behaviour unit who is going to bring his own set of joys. One of your colleagues found out last week that they’ve got stage three cancer; another is going through a divorce; one of the staff who phoned in sick this morning is now refusing to come in having made serious allegations against another staff member, and a supply teacher walked off the job on yesterday because they say the behaviour of the students is so bad they can’t teach here and the agencies we use haven’t got anyone else. Year eleven are taking their exams soon and half of them are freaked out and their teachers are exhausted. Ofsted are due. So what do you want me to say, because trust me, I could go on. Please accept it when I tell you that the social worker was very nice and very concerned. He says he’ll continue to keep an eye on her. So he’ll do that; you’ll play teacher instead of social worker and I’ll finally get to my meeting.’
‘What
’s the name of this visiting social worker?’
‘Karl Bright. He assured me that the team always looks into every allegation Destiny makes. He seemed a good man. But this is how it is, Jenni. There’s nothing anyone can do to stop the drama: Destiny’s just too damaged.’ He checked his watch again. ‘Your time is up. Now – please – go have lunch and let me have mine.’
Friday
12:53
Jenni
If I walked fast, it took me exactly three minutes from the school gate to reach the terraced two-up two-down that I had grown up in and where my dad still lived; being able to visit my ageing dad every lunchtime was one of the attractions of accepting the job at Northshield Academy.
Every day was the same – I left the school around three minutes after the bell for lunch sounded and then it took me another three minutes to walk the long road that both my dad’s house and the school shared, dodging crisp packets and dog poo on my journey.
I used to live on this street, but I didn’t go to the box-like school that occupied the Northshield Academy site – not for more than two weeks anyway. My dad wouldn’t tolerate any more of the bullying that I barely recall now and packed me off every day to travel by train to the all girls’ school five miles away. It was probably a good decision because I ended up enjoying school. But after two years, I think my dad decided that I wasn’t getting enough exposure to boys, so he marched me to the Territorial Army barracks a mile away and signed me up for the evening youth squad. I was the first and only girl there for a long time, so for a couple of years my days were all girls and my evenings all boys. I soon realised whose company I preferred, so when I left school, I joined the army the next day.
When I was in the army, I rarely saw my dad. When I got back, I felt I should. Twenty minutes a day, for the four days a week I worked at the school. It worked for us. For those two years, it was a good thing and the memories of it kept me going in the dark nights that followed.
I’d always arrive at my dad’s at exactly 12.46. He’d always be sitting at the table with a pot of tea and a sandwich for him, and a pint of tepid water and four hard-boiled eggs for me. I was on a high-protein diet for my Ironman training and the next UK event was in July. I planned on being the winning woman again – now I’d turned forty, the stakes felt higher than ever.
But today I was late. With the sound of blood pounding in my ears, I let myself in.
The hall was tiny, but I could see into the dining room and small kitchen at the rear. One step in and I could see my dad, standing, watching the front door. I noticed he was holding himself up against the worktop, for despite his thick hair and strong jaw, his knees were becoming increasingly weak. On a different day, I would’ve worried about him.
‘Love!’ he said, sounding like George, because they were born and raised within ten miles of each other but twenty years apart, ‘I was worried!’ My dad was also ex-military, so he too observed the clock like a master.
I had never been early or late. My dad joked that he could set a clock to me. And it was true: I never let the kids out a minute early, but nor could anyone keep me late. No one could delay my visit to see my dad at lunch – the kids knew it, my colleagues knew it and if anyone, even George, tried to ask me something in the corridor, I would keep going, calling back without stopping that I’d catch up with them later. I worked hard and the forty minutes I had at lunchtime, was my lunchtime.
‘I have a problem,’ I said, frantically shelling a burning-hot egg.
‘Love, I’m sorry if it’s overcooked. I know you don’t like grey yolks. It’s been sitting on the plate, though . . . so it might be.’
I bit into it; it was fine. My dad fretted about pointless things. I often thought that he needed more to worry about than daytime TV. I told him about Destiny and he listened as I knew he would. Twelve years of service and then thirty-six working on the Newhaven docks as a foreman meant that not much surprised him and if it did, he’d learnt not to show it.
‘Where is the girl now?’
I shrugged. ‘Hopefully still in school having her lunch somewhere.’ I peeled another egg. ‘But what can I do?’
‘What can you do?’ That was my dad: not a man of rhetorical questions or inflection, just a straightforward talker. When I was small, his best friend, Reggie, would always lean across the table at the local Labour social club and tell me: ‘Your dad is the straightest man I’ve ever known. He’d give a dropped ten pence back to Richard Branson if it were his.’ And my dad would’ve done, too. He would chase Branson down for a mile if it meant he returned something near worthless to the man who owned it. But that was my dad: completely reliable, a man who would always put himself out to do the right thing. And as I sat there and looked at him across his uneaten ham sandwich, I knew that he was thinking about the right thing to do now.
‘She’s still in danger, I know it.’ I bashed another egg with a satisfying crack.
‘What exactly did the girl tell you?’
‘Children are rarely explicit about their fears. But her body language! She was shaking and had eyes like dinner plates. But the biggest thing was that she wet herself. She peed on the classroom floor.’ I rubbed the smooth shiny surface of the egg. The wobble and shine reminded me of how guts look when someone has been disembowelled. I put the egg down.
‘Are you sure . . . ?’
‘Am I sure what?’
‘You know?’ His head made a small dancing movement. ‘That you read it right?’
‘You tell me? If someone shakes and wets themselves, what does that usually mean?’
He nodded thoughtfully. ‘OK, yes. I see your point.’
Good. I believed my dad on all matters concerning the emotions of others.
Despite how I felt, I forced myself to eat the egg; my diet was carefully worked out and everything was about staying at the maximum level of athletic performance. Nothing I ate was ever about hunger or emotional responses. ‘I wish I’d had a chance to speak with the social worker. If I’d heard from him, his thoughts, his plans, I’m sure I would feel better, but I’m in the dark and I hate that. It means I have to trust them, trust the second-hand info I get via George, and as much as George is a good guy, he’s overworked and is not a details man.’ I met my dad’s gaze; in his watery eyes I saw something. ‘I guess I need to know that the social worker isn’t going to forget all about this, but is actually going to do something tangible about keeping Destiny safe.’
‘Do you have his number?’
‘No, but I have his name.’ I paused, thinking it through. ‘Mind if I use your phone?’
*
I went through to the MASH. I hadn’t had to ring social services before, but our training at school was pretty good. MASH was the multi-agency social care hub, and they took Destiny’s name and the social worker’s name and then patched me through to the appropriate social work team. After two minutes of Handel’s Water Music, there was a click and then a woman’s voice thanked me for calling before asking me to leave a message after the beep. Then the voice changed to an automated voice, saying the voicemail was full.
I rang back. After getting an engaged signal, I had to try three further times before I got through again. This time I got a man answering the call, who told me that they couldn’t do anything to help me as I wasn’t reporting a fresh concern, and instead suggested I email a general inbox with my query. ‘No, I want to speak to a particular social worker.’
‘Which is who, madam?’
‘The visiting social worker who is dealing with emergencies today, Karl Bright. Or Destiny Mills’ case worker – either.’
‘I’ll check.’
I listened to Handel’s Water Music again, and with every passing second, I became more irritated. I checked my watch: I had to get back to school, and just as school could never keep me from leaving for lunch with my dad, nothing would keep me from getting back. I decided that if I got dumped through to a voicemail again, I would leave a terse message and cal
l back when the kids had left school for the day. Perhaps, I decided, I would even take a trip up to wherever their office was and talk to them there.
Then the music was interrupted. ‘Sorry.’ It was the same man again. ‘I’m back. So sorry for the delay. Could I check your details again please?’
Relieved not to have my call dropped, I answered his question before adding what Karl Bright had said and done.
‘Hold the line, please.’ He paused. ‘Don’t hang up.’
No music this time, then a woman came on the phone and gave her name as Janice Strong, adding, ‘And I’m the team manager.’
‘Are you Karl Bright’s boss?’
She paused. ‘No.’ Then, as I felt irritation clench my chest and was about to ask to be put through to Karl Bright or his boss, she said, ‘Karl isn’t Destiny Mills’ social worker. Her social worker is Madeline Watts, but she is on extended leave at the moment; her cases are being overseen by the team.’
‘I know that, but he was the one dealing with her case today. I want to speak with him because he came to see Destiny earlier and I’m not happy with his decision. I think Destiny is in trouble and I want him to do something more constructive to keep her safe than the bugger-all he’s done so far.’ Many people found me too blunt, but I didn’t care. If something needed saying, I didn’t know how else to do it other than say it.
There was silence for a long time. I thought I had blown it and she was considering hanging up on me, when she said, ‘Actually, I wanted to ask you about Karl.’
‘I think we should be talking about Destiny.’
Pause. ‘We are concerned about Destiny too. She is scheduled to be visited this afternoon at her residential.’
‘Why are you seeing her again?’
‘We’re not seeing her again.’ Her voice was careful, but I couldn’t read it. It was the thing that most frustrated me about myself: the difficulty to understand people’s tone of voice or facial expressions easily. It was like being dropped into an unknown land where everyone else had a map and I did not.